Faculty & Staff Details
Ruby Joseph, M.P.A.
Assistant In Research
Division of Training, Research, Education and Demonstrations (TREAD)
Brief Biography
Ruby Joesph is an Assistant-In-Research in TREaD, Department of Child and Familty Studies. Her primary interests are in research and evaluation of minority populations and communities and she is particularly interested in issues that affect the mental, educational, and social developments of children. Ms. Joesph is the Principal Investigator/Program Director for the GEAR-UP program which is a multi-year, federally and locally funded program that helps low-income, minority youth, prepare for graduation and post secondary placements into vocational/technical schools, two and four-year colleges or the workforce.
Ms. Joseph's primary responsibilities involve directing and coordinating all major program activites with five full-time GEAR UP program faculty and staff and several part-time OPS tutors. She collaborates with the School District of Hillborough County, Hillsborough High School administrators and serves as a liaison between the University's GEAR UP program and various community organizations in the Tampa Bay area. Ms. Joseph spends a fair amount of her time building community collaborations that help support the students and families in GEAR UP. She also tries to bring about more awareness about the University's support of Hillborough county youth through programs like GEAR UP.
One of her accomplishments has been her ability to secure match funds to help support the program and students. Over the years, together with staff, GEAR UP has recieved a variety of matching funds and in-kind resources and donations from many different organizations. Some of these partners include Children's Board of Hillsborough County; Hillsborough Education Foundation, Inc., the Glazer Familty Foundation; Starbucks Foundation, Inc., the Corporation to Develop Communities, Inc., and the City of Tampa Mayor's Beautification Program. In addition to local partners, Ms. Joseph also collaborates with national organizations that advocate and support students' education and social develpoment. In 2006, along with other Florida partnership GEAR UP grantees, she visited the offices of Senator Bill Nelson and Senator Mel martinez in Washington D.C. in 2006 to share some of USF's GEAR UP success stories.
She is inspired by the successes of the first USF GEAR UP program when staff place 107 students from Blake High School into colleges and universities across the United States. The program also gave $1,000 scholarships to thirty-five of these students. Ms. Joseph is looking forward to experienceing similar success is 2008, when GEAR UP graduates its first group of students from Hillsborough High School.